


With Him At The End

by batyalewbel



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Background Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s09e11 Heaven Sent, F/M, Gen, Heaven Sent, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 05:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13264398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: As dreams and hallucinations go, this is a nicer one than most.“Rose,” he gasps out, still face down on the stone floor.‘I’m here,’ she says.





	With Him At The End

_Tell me about a complicated man._

_Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost_

_when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,_

_and where he went, and who he met, the pain_

_he suffered in the storms at sea, and how_

_he worked to save his life and bring his men_

_back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,_

_they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god_

_kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,_

_tell the old story for our modern times._

_Find the beginning._

_-The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson_

 

The problem is, he really doesn’t remember everything.

At least not quite.

And he never really wins.

How many times has he been through this cycle?

 _BIRD,_ scrawled out into the dust and a wall of Azbantium.

As soon as it all clicks into place, he knows.

He’s done this before.

He can’t actually remember the past cycles.

More like echoes of them. Shadows of former selves going through this same cycle over and over again.

He can see the indentation in the wall and he knows that it’s time to sharpen his beak…

That is… Until the Veil can wrap it’s skeletal hands around him.

He knew to run from this thing on sight, and that was just the shades of his past selves screaming at him to get the hell out of there.

It feels like instinct but it’s more than that as he slams his fist against the diamond mountain and feels his knuckles fracture in three places.

It’s the knowledge that he’s done this before as he howls in pain and rears back to strike at it again.

“There’s this emperor and,” he says as he slams his fist into the wall again and feels it shatter.

He’s done this before and he’ll do it again for her.

Because this one time he’s putting his foot down and sticking it to the universe.

This one time he’s gonna win.

“And the emperor asks the shepherd's boy...” he gasps as cold hands wrap around him.

It _burns._ It sears him in place and it rips a scream from his lungs.

And then nothing.

\---

He’s been talking to Clara for a long time.

Plotting, planning, scheming.

Begging, pleading, crying.

In his mind he screams out, begging to give up, to give in.

 _“It’s not fair,”_ he yells at the unstoppable force and her chalkboard.

_“Why can’t I just lose?”_

_NO,_ she says in her untidy, chalky scrawl.

 _“But you don’t understand Clara,”_ he pleads with her, _“Because I can remember everything and no matter how many times I do this…”_

He has to swallow hard just to say the words aloud in his own mind.

_“You still won’t be there.”_

And she’ll always come to him then with those gentle, smiling eyes.

She’ll tell him to get off his arse and _win_ and for that one moment he does.

\---

By his calculations, it’s been a billion years or more.

He’s started seeing other faces too.

Sometimes it’s Donna telling him to run faster.

Amy telling him to fight harder.

Clara’s always there at her chalkboard or painted on the wall but others are joining her.

Other ghosts in his TARDIS.

All the ones he swore to protect and failed.

His duty of care failed them too.

He never sees Rose until the end.

She always waits for him there.

\---

Consciousness comes back slowly, like pins and needles. Like a slow scrape to awake.

Like peeling off a band-aid one painful inch at a time.

He’s an open wound and his nerves scream out with it.

Everything feels broken and bleeding and that’s when she comes to him.

 _‘Doctor,’_ she says and she’s not really there.

The Veil wounded him too deeply, he won’t regenerate.

But he might hallucinate.

As dreams and hallucinations go, this is a nicer one than most.

“Rose,” he gasps out, still face down on the stone floor.

 _‘I’m here,’_ she says and he can feel her hands on him, gentle and feather light touches.

 _‘Come on Doctor, you have to move,’_ she says and he nods as best he can with his face pressed into the stone.

He doesn’t know quite how he manages to roll on his back.

Or stand up.

But she’s there the whole time.

 _‘Good job Doctor, now just keep moving,’_ she says and so he does.

A billion and a half years and he’s still going.

\---

He drags his body, inch by painful inch, through the castle.

He wants to give up but Clara’s waiting for him.

He had a duty of care and this time he won’t give that up so easily.

What’s a little pain anyway? He’s known eons of pain.

Still.

When his body gives out and collapses on the stairs he is so _tired._

In that moment, he wants to give up.

He wants to give in.

And she’s there, crouched down beside him.

 _‘What’re you doing here?’_ she asks and it’s gentle and almost teasing, her lips curving upwards just a little.

“I’m tired Rose,” he gasps out and she nods down at him, sobering.

_‘I know Doctor, I know. But you’re not finished yet.’_

“I know...I just...want to rest awhile,” he says and she nods again, settling on the stairs beside him.

_‘Okay Doctor, let’s rest a little while.’_

_\---_

“Rose, have you ever heard the story of the Shepherd’s Boy?” he asks, pulling himself down a long hallway that seems to never end as she walks softly beside him.

 _‘Tell me again Doctor,”_ she says and she smiles.

“There’s this emperor, and he asks the shepherd’s boy, _‘How many seconds in eternity?’”_

_\---_

He’s going to burn himself up to make a new copy and start again.

Two billion years and still, he’s not finished yet.

Or _he’s_ finished, but he’ll start again.

And again, and again, and again.

There are tears in his eyes as he wires himself into the machine.

He’s just fuel now for the next copy and Rose is there right beside him. Her eyes big and sad and how can he be scared to die when he isn’t really dying?

Just a version of himself.

 _This_ version.

“Rose, I’m scared,” he whispers.

 _‘I know, Doctor,’_ she murmurs, resting a hand against his cheek.

_‘I know.’_

A tear trickles down to catch in her fingertips.

 _‘It’ll be alright Doctor,’_ she says.

“That’s a lie,” he tells her and his voice sounds like gravel. Or like stone ground down to dust.

Like all the dust in this room.

 _‘It’s only a lie if you don’t believe it Doctor,’_ she says and of course she’s right.

“Believe the lie,” he murmurs to her and himself.

“I’ll be alright Rose,” he says as he lifts himself up to the control panel, “Everything will be alright.”

 _‘That’s it Doctor,’_ she says and she’s holding his left hand, the one that isn’t working the controls.

She holds it tight and he looks back at her for just a moment.

“It’ll be alright,” he tells her and tells himself before throwing the switch and burning himself from the inside out.

\---

His screams echo like they have for the last three billion years as he falls again into the dust and Rose sits over him then as he uses his last ounce of will to scrawl his future self a message. And a warning.

_BIRD._

The last thing he sees are two pairs of sad eyes watching him before he’s gone.

\---

It could be his imagination or it could be real.

Who can say for sure?

Two ghosts meet in the TARDIS.

 _‘He really misses you,’_ the blonde woman says to the brunette.

 _‘I think he loved you,’_ the brunette replies.

_‘He did, but not that face. An older face and I loved him back.’_

_‘I think I met that face,’_ the brunette says and the blonde smiles.

_‘I think you did.’_

And together they stand in the doorway of the TARDIS watching a bright spray of stars as they turn to stardust over the course of three and a half billion years.

 _‘Thank you for being with him at the end,’_ the brunette says.

 _‘I’m glad to do it for him,’_ the blonde replies and distantly they can hear the sounds of shouting. Of an angry old man starting over and they share a look.

It’s time to start again.

 _‘I think he’s going to get through this time,’_ the blonde says and the brunette smiles this time, a little sad and happy at once.

_‘I think so too.’_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still dealing with Heaven Sent and I had an idea i couldn't shake.


End file.
